Continuity of Command

A while back, I posted a kind of scorecard of malfeasance and hanky-panky at the command levels of the Detroit police dept. Well,the tradition continues. Chief Ralph Godbee has been suspended for theoretically the same thing.

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Update 2012 10 09: Godbee resigned. The mayor and the Police Commission are snarling at each other over who gets to cover the whole thing up investigate. Rick Snyder is frowning at everybody.

I had never heard of this gentleman

Wole Soyinka is a Nigerian writer -- a Nobel laureate, too.  He hadn't really been on my radar; in fact, I'd never heard of him.  But, man, when he's right about something, he's really right.

"... the science fiction archetype of the mad scientist who craves to dominate the world has been replaced by the mad cleric who can only conceive of the world in his own image ..."

"Certainly it cannot be denied that religion has proved again and again a spur, a motivator and a justification for the commission of some of the most horrifying crimes against humanity, despite its fervent affirmations of peace. Let us, however, steer away from hyperbolic propositions and simply settle for this moderating moral imperative: that it is time that the world adopt a position that refuses to countenance religion as an acceptable justification for, excuse or extenuation of crimes against humanity."

The quotes are from an address he gave to  the 2012 Conference on the Culture of Peace and Non-Violence at the UN.  The Root has the entire text here.  Worth a look.

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Update 2012 10 04: Ed Asner agrees. He said in a New York Magazine interview, "I tend to think that religion has probably killed more people than anything else."

While that's not statistically supportable (being alive is the number one cause of death, after all,) I applaud the sentiment.

Draw your own conclusions

... about ISO 9001, Zimbabwe, or anything else, for that matter.

But before you do, have a look at this fascinating bit of news.

Technology serving you

 On Friday night, ours was among 1000 or so homes that were blacked out due to incompetent utility crews blowing something up again. (Fortunately, not our air conditioning condenser, this time.)  This morning (Sunday,) my Google voice phone account emailed me this automatically - generated transcript of a call from DTE. 

Hello, this is D T E energy calling with information about your most recent college us up transmission line that feeds a sub station your Manchester Road in medford road went out cruise repair the lying in order to restore your power. If you have any further questions or concerns, please call (313) 235-4141 leave your name, address and phone number and in engineering representative for return your call. Yeah, this message from from hey Pansat 29 keep asking for now. Hello, I had in mind land. 

My experience with DTE is that cruise seldom have to repair the lying.  It's usually in good working order.

I never thought I'd say it

Mitt Romney and I agree on something. "Don't expect tax cuts," he says.

I've said it myself.  Emphatically. Over and over again. It doesn't matter who you vote for, who gets elected, or what else happens: do not expect to pay less in taxes.  Can't happen. An official or an economist or a candidate who says it can is a) lying, b) ignorant, or c) insane.

And again, I find myself in the unlikely position of agreeing with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He called for a "new world order" or something like that when, for reasons that are not at all clear to me, he was again allowed to address the UN.  I don't think we're on the same page, Mahmoud and me, about the details of this here new order, but I sure agree we need one.

Apparently, so does the supreme leader of Iran (which is not Mr. Ahmadinejad - it's the Grand Ayatollah  Youso Ali Hosseini Khamenei.) While the President was out of town, eating noodles at one of David Chang's places, most likely, the supremo had the President's press secretary arrested for saying things he didn't like. (Caution: that's a link to Haaretz, easily one of the most annoying news sites on the web. You were warned.)

Anyway, it's been a good day for saying stupid things in public, and I thought I should join in.

Human or AI translation: you decide

In this article from the Monrovia, Liberia New Republic, the author reports on the discovery of what, here, would be a somewhat minor piece of governmental fraud -- in Detroit, it'd have been a misdemeanor.  Essentially, the perpetrator sent a letter to the biggest taxpayer in his area of irresponsibility, saying that the government had outsourced its tax collection processes, and in the future, would you please send your taxes to me?  Surprisingly, this netted him $325K, more or less, until he was spotted.  All that would be unremarkable, except for what the story says next:

"But as he was cooking the scheme, apparently God was looking down and little he knew he would be caught pant down and his deal exposed ..." 

 You can't make this stuff up.

Sabre Rattling on the PacRim

The Japanese say that cyber attacks are grounds for military response.  Now let's see, who could they be thinking about, there?

And then there's this bit of controversy over who owns what, out in the East China Sea. Seems like a potential Falklands sequel, except done as a kung fu epic rather than a post-colonial bedroom farce.

Automotive News

Kia, the Korean automaker whose business strategy seems to be to make unattractive cars, copied badly from other companies' models, and sell them to people who frankly don't care what they drive, has announced a major push to increase share in the US.

"We’re going to do everything in our power to gain market share,” said Tom Loveless, Kia Motors America executive vice president of sales ...

"Everything in their power" seems to involve dancing hamsters.  Really.  It appears to be a savage swipe at the Spiderman musical or perhaps a condemnation of the pretensions of the Enlightenment, a parody of recent Heineken spots, perhaps -- a car commercial, not so much. There was a time when ad agencies got fired for this kind of nonsense.

As everyone knows, there are only two ways to sell cars in America, and both involve reproduction.  You sell to men by building vehicles and marketing campaigns that promise increased masculinity and reproductive success (viz, the Dodge Ram, which is manifestly inferior to its competitors from Ford and GM, but has a cooler name.)  You sell to women by promising that their precious offspring will be safely encased in a battle cruiser of airbags, crush zones, reliability, weatherproofing, and cup holders, while the little darlings are kept in a trance-like state by a constant flow of moronic digital entertainment.

Somehow, I have trouble fitting dancing hamsters into either of these messages.

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Ok, I just watched it again, and I'm even more baffled.  Is the whole dancing and costumery thing supposed to represent hip, minority youth?  If so, notice that all the humans are pasty, pancake-makeup white, and the dancing creatures are ... hamsters.  Domesticated rats.  Is the message, "Hey, kids!  You know you're just vermin in the eyes of the grownups, so act like it! Buy a Kia!"

And while we're deconstructing, what segment of the American market is all ga-ga over hamsters?  I don't think urban yoof have very good feelings about rodents in general.  Soccer moms? Nope, that doesn't seem to resonate.  I'm just not getting it.

Well good for them

The Russians are worried about our defense technology.

That, of course, would be one reason for our having it, but never mind.  If they can't remember what happened the last time they decided to get into a spending race with us, I'm happy to let them go on not remembering.

"The question is will we copy the Americans' 40-year experience and create a (Northrop) B-2 analog ... or will we go down a new, ultramodern technology route, looking to the horizon and create a machine able to penetrate air defenses and carry out a strike on any aggressor," he said.

"He" being Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin.  Hee, hee.  Chuckle. Ha, ha. 'Scuse me. Haw, haw, haw! Snort! Cough! Wheeze! Ha, ha -- Sorry.  I was just thinking about what a wonderful stalking horse the B2 was, how many, many USD it cost, and how great it would be if the Russians decided to a) emulate that project or, b) leapfrog it and create something even less necessary and even more expensive. Chuckle.


Meanwhile, guess where the slowing Chinese economy is now causing problems?  We buy rare earth elements from them, they buy ... arn.  Yep, arn, or as it's pronounced in the Midwest, Iron. Or rather, they used to. Oh, how sad I am for the plight of poor Rio Tinto.

Denial State University Expands Overseas

There are no lions or tigers or fruitbats or hippopotamuses or ...

Somehow, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources has infiltrated the UK!